Show Day: Glasgow - SECC, Show One

27 August 2001

Show Day: Glasgow - SECC, Show One

It was generally agreed that tonight's show was to be a party. Being a bit of a last minute thing, the tickets only went on sale on Thursday, so everyone present seemed consumed with the excitement of being at a spontaneous event. The venue is small - about 9,000 - and for reasons of roof geography you have to play across the room, rather than from end to end. This meant that when Bono was on the tip of the heart he was, quite literally, closer to me than he was to Larry. I always find it oddly uncomfortable doing a show when I'm close enough to the band to be able to see the whites of their eyes. Force of habit, I suppose.

We were all on one large coach going back to the hotel after the show. It was about 45 minutes drive to wherever it was we were going, but fortunately the journey was transformed by my fluke discovery of a Bingo set on the parcel shelf. It was a fantastic set too - complete with one of those turning cages that spit out the numbered balls. Everyone was duly handed Bingo cards and I took enormous pleasure in bellowing out the numbers ('on the green, thirteen', 'Sixty six, clickety click', 'eighty eight, two fat ladies', etc.) We were howling laughing, but of course it all got a bit ugly and terribly competitive when we got into the final furlong. Sharon ('Shaker') our head of wardrobe was the first to yell 'Bingo' but there was some dissention amongst the group because she'd been on the phone and caught up with some of her missing numbers after the fact. It might sound like a mere technicality now, but let me tell you, it practically led to a bloodbath at the time.